I Can See Russia from my Cruise Ship.

Alaska. Home of diverse fauna and flora, gorgeous glaciers, and Sarah Palin. It's also where I've been for the last week! My family and I took a last minute cruise to Alaska aboard the Sapphire Princess. Once you get past the fact that only old people take that cruise, it was a lot of fun! Here's the short version:

First I took a plane to Seattle. It was completely uneventful except for the full body scanning and creepy TSA agents.

Next I got to Seattle and checked in to the Holiday Inn Express. Classy! (And uneventful.)

My family and I headed to the dock and waited in a long line the next morning. More security checkpoints to pass through, but these were much less invasive than the airport ones. I even got to keep my shoes on and didn't go past first base with the security officer. After that was more waiting in line to show our passports. The nice lady behind the desk couldn't believe I was in college, thus reaffirming the fact that I will forever look 5 years younger than I actually am. Finally we head outside...and wait in another line, this time to board the ship. Eventually they let us on and an overly excited photographer took our picture in front of a tropical background with a picture of the ship in it. This is apparently the best way to remember waiting in line for a cruise...to Alaska. Ingenious!

Our main deck.

If you think about it, cruises are a pretty dated concept. I mean, you're basically using a method of travel that was new and exciting...over one hundred years ago. Once you look past the fancy decorations, the complimentary grill / buffet line, and the towel animals, you're just on a boat at the end of the day. (Speaking of towel animals, here's one my mom forced our steward to make.)

Boats by themselves are awful. Especially if you're cooped up on one for over a week. That's why you see people sipping long island iced teas at 9 in the morning on these things; options for entertainment can be limited at times. My sister and I, being 19, were forced to pursue other ways to entertain ourselves. For example, we went on a week long scavenger hunt! It was a lot of fun until the other participants - all middle aged women - began fighting over who should win first place. (My sister and I came in last) We also lost Bingo on three separate occasions as well as trivia. Then we came in 4th place for the ship's version of the Amazing Race - something I'm still bitter about. There was a dance off...we took pictures of old people dancing. Well it's what they called dancing. That was surprisingly cool and maybe a little bit creepy on our parts.

So the games weren't the best...at least we got to experience high quality entertainment. My mother insisted we attend at least one of the many shows the ship puts on in the theater. After her begging and pleading we begrudgingly agreed to see a comedian / magician. This could only be described as one of the worst things I've ever laid eyes on. First of all, the guy had a highlight clip from the 80's...the woman he picked as a volunteer in the clip had the shoulder pads of an NFL linebacker under her cream colored pantsuit and the video quality screamed budget-less. I've seen snuff films done better than that train wreck. Then the actual show started. I'll spare you the details but know this: my mom, who had dragged us out to this gem of a performance, fell asleep within the first ten minutes. So did my dad. I kid you not.

DJ Coolio...yes that's his name...was the coolest entertainer on board.

I'm sure the other entertainers were good, but I wasn't sticking around to find out. I will tell you one thing that was good though...the food. I gained about one pound for every day I was on that ship. Breakfast and lunch are the biggest buffet lines you've ever seen. I usually ended up getting a meal I call "second lunch" which consists of burgers and fries from the aforementioned grill. Then came dinner. Despite the cruise insisting on formal wear for the gourmet dinners, no one actually dressed up. (except for my family because we're classy individuals) Dinner was always at least three courses, and one night turned into seven. I ate everything. EVERYTHING. If you asked about the lobster but ordered the duck instead, your waiter will bring you both. Can't decide on a desert? Don't worry, your server will bring you ALL OF THEM. EVERY SINGLE DESERT. And since you're not going to let that go to waste, you eat ALL OF THE DESERTS. It was a true story; pathetic, yet delicious.

This was one of the less gourmet menu items.

Of course they let you off the ship sometimes. Our ports of call were Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Victoria. They were all like mini-adventures, so I'll tackle them one by one.

Our first destination was the lovely port of Ketchikan. We arrive at the wee hour of 6:00 in the morning and thanks to my mother's nagging, were ready to get off the boat well before that. The planned activity? Salmon fishing... We hopped on a boat that belonged to a guy named Johnny and headed out into a bay just past town on this little boat.

Johnny with my sister. He said she was sassy.

There's something you should know about Johnny. Johnny is the saltiest sailor I've ever met. His disdain for stupid tourists was evident by the stories he told us. These involved laughing at the idiots who were paying $300 to go on an eagle watching tour that consisted of walking along the road and looking at trees that supposedly contained eagles. (More on the eagles later) That along with the idiots who paid $300 for a beginner scuba lesson in water that was well below 40 degrees. Fortunately, Johnny liked us since he thought our money was well spent on his services. In fact, he even baked us cookies and prepared a snack tray so we wouldn't starve to death. I've never really caught a fish before...so catching this guy was a relatively exciting experience for me!

Don't ask me why my jacket is so short.

At one point, we caught a rockfish. According to Johnny, these guys weren't so tasty to eat so he said he was going to surprise us with something. He took our freshly caught rockfish, whistled a little bit, and hurled it back into the bay. All of a sudden, something happened that completely redefines awesome.

Bald eagles are some bad ass mother!#@$ers.

Anyway, we caught a couple more fish, then headed back to the docks for some nice rainy weather. We ambled around town a little bit and looked at overpriced gift shops. But after our salmon fishing trip, it was kind of uneventful, so we headed back to the ship and called it a day.

Ketchikan is quaint

Our next stop was Juneau - capital of Alaska, and home of Sarah Palin. Seriously, that woman's face was everywhere, like on this shirt we found.

Along the way we went through a little waterway called Tracy's arm, home of some truly stunning scenery. The water was studded with large chunks of ice from a nearby glacier, some of which were the coolest shade of blue I've ever laid eyes on.

This seal is literally chillin.

The first order of business in Juneau was to spot some whales! We took a bus out to a dock and hopped on a rickety vessel called Ol' Blue. Then our overly exuberant nature guide Krista handed out harpoons and directed us on where to shoot once the whale surfaced. That was a joke, but she did tell us everything there is to know about whales and why they like to eat plankton. Fortunately, we ended up seeing quite a few whales. Unfortunately, they were all really far away - but my sister's zoom lens was able to get some good shots though, this one being my favorite.

 Eventually, our visit with these big guys had to come to an end, and we said our heartfelt goodbyes. The next stop on our journey was to the Mendenhall glacier, and apparently its really famous. (I honestly don't know much about glaciers) All I can tell you is that it's huge, and quite a sight to look at. The sad part was how much it had receded....there were signs dating back to the 1930's marking the glaciers recessional progress. We later found out the spot where this next picture was taken marks the glacier's presence in 1930.

Unfortunately due to flooding, we couldn't get much closer to the glacier. My sister and I tried climbing a cliff to go up and then around the water, but we realized halfway up that our imminent deaths weren't on the agenda that day. Instead we decided to walk around the national park to kill time before the bus got back. We passed up a creek filled with spawning salmon, looked at some flowers, saw some birds. It was nice! Then a tour guide from another company emerged from the brush, smiled at us, and nonchalantly asked: "Did you guys see the bear?" Apparently an adult black bear was within our 50 foot vicinity. This signaled an end to our glacier visit, and the batshit insane tour guide walked back with us describing how the bear was nice and majestic and probably didn't want to eat us but the salmon from the creek. Whatever lady. Sighs of relief were had when the bus came back into view...but a couple that had been on the bus with us before didn't ride back with us afterwards - and nobody knew what became of them. I bet that black bear did though.

My mother, being a bargain hunter, had booked a special package for Juneau that took our family to a salmon bake at the end of the day. (A salmon bake is basically an Alaskan barbecue, but instead of burgers they cook salmon) Our bus driver dropped us off, and the other tourists were all extremely jealous of our good fortune, joking about how good the food looked and how we should bring some back to the cruise ship for them. My mom smiled smugly at her amazing family fun planning skills. The food was really good, and it ended the day nicely. We found a creek filled with spawning salmon, so I ventured into the middle of it for this lovely picture. No bears in sight though.

 

The next day we landed in Skagway, but we ended up hopping on a train and going to the Yukon. But instead of panning for gold we looked at pretty things, such as these flowers.

They're called Fireweed...the official flowers of the Yukon!

Our bus driver's name was Terrell. Terrell from Texas. Terrell the Texan tour guide. He can only be described as your grandpa, but way cooler. Here's a picture of Terrell.

Anyway, we spent a few hours driving to our Yukon destination and stopped along the way to take some pictures in front of mountains and lakes...LOTS of them. I'll spare you the trouble and show you just one.

But in reality, this picture doesn't do the area justice. The sheer magnitude of the things we saw can't be captured in the lens of a camera...you kind of have to see it for yourself to believe it. Anyway, despite taking pictures, we had an actual destination to get to...the dog sledding camp! They fed us barbecue chicken and cinnamon doughnuts. I guess dog sledders like cinnamon doughnuts, but in my opinion they were nothing special. I wasn't there for confectionery delights though, I was there to get my cute on. Here's me being friends with a dog named Snickers.

I freaking love dogs.

Then we got to experience an actual dog sledding adventure! This is one of those things that sounds great on paper, until you realize it's actually not. You see, we roll up into a clearing with a hundred dogs chained up. They see us, and they know that someone's going to get to pull a cart full of humans. So they ALL START BARKING AND PEEING AT THE SAME TIME. This draws a crowd of people who all start taking pictures and pointing at the horrible fat people who paid to ride in a wagon that was pulled by dogs that weighed 40 pounds each. This wasn't one of my proudest moments...but the dogs did actually seem to enjoy it.

The second picture is the dogs pulling up to their cool down station. If it were NASCAR, this would be the equivalence of a pit stop. Anyway...with that little "adventure" complete, it was time to start the long drive back to the ship. We took more pictures in front of pretty things, and finally got on board to call it a day.

Our last official port of call was on the way back to Seattle - it was Victoria, from the lovely British Columbia. Victoria was a beautiful city. Just look at their legislative building!

It was sunny, beautiful, and filled with flowers. My grandma would have loved it. Unfortunately, we were unable to stay there for very long...it was only a four hour docking. We ended up going to a bar for dinner...the drinking age is 19 so we took the chance to legally enjoy some adult beverages. (All you munchkins out there, make sure you follow any laws that pertain to you - underage drinking is a no-no!)

This was us at about 6:00 PM.

6:02. We're lightweights.

We ended up running into the people that won the amazing race (scroll way back to the top if you forgot) and got into a friendly conversation with them. Unfortunately, we ended up having such a good time that we never left the bar! We headed straight back to the cruise ship and turned in for our final evening aboard the ship.

The next morning we docked back in Seattle, and getting off of the ship was almost as much of a hassle as getting on was. Anyway, our trip wasn't over yet...we got off the boat on Sunday but our flight back to Texas wasn't until Monday. This meant my mom's vacation mode was still activated. We headed over to the infamous Pike's Market where my sister and I ventured out on our own. We go to see all sorts of cool things.

We saw this famous sign.

We saw a guy with a bird.

We saw a creepy ass balloon man.

We saw guys throwing fish around.

We saw posers.

We saw hipsters selling fruit.

We saw cool carnies doing magic tricks.

We saw more hipsters outside the first ever Starbucks.

I reluctantly modeled for my sister.

After that little adventure we went to the locks...which is basically a lame version of the Panama canal. I didn't find it that interesting, but my parents dug it. To end the day, we thought about going to the Space Needle...but we'd already spent a small fortune on the cruise. Spending a few hundred bucks for an elevator ride wasn't really appealing...we hailed a cab and found a nice view of the city.

After a dinner at the highest point in Seattle, it was time for a much needed rest. Back to the hotel, and then an early flight to Texas the next day. We flew into Houston and were welcomed with awful weather, lots of laundry, and actual responsibilities to attend to. That's real life for ya. But after crafting this post and looking back on the memories I was able to experience with my family, it's safe to say I had a really good time out there. So to whoever said family vacations were lame, boring, and a drag, you sir, are what we call "doing it wrong".

Summer's coming to a close, and school's about to start again. Soon it'll be fall, and then the holidays will be around the corner. That means in laws, stress, finals, etc. Folks, enjoy what's left of your summer. Make the most of each second...life only sucks if you let it!

Cam

P.S. - My sister's flickr is here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxcnpxo/

She's the girl behind the camera in almost all of the photos from this post. The photos here don't do her work justice due to the low quality files I used...check her out!

Also this post is LONG AS !@#$. There may be errors...I kinda proofread it but not really...forgive me. Also, the trip was two weeks before the date of this post. It took me awhile to gather the pictures and write everything down. That's all ;)